Heart vs thumbs up icon: Paktor's A/B test

The bottom line

Paktor's thumbs up and thumbs down buttons beat the heart and X redesign on user engagement. A design that seemed more appealing did not lead to more interactions, so it had to be tested.

Key takeaways

The thumbs up and thumbs down version won the test. It drove more engagement than the heart and X version the team expected to do better.
- The hypothesis was that a heart and an X would be more appealing and prompt more interactions.
Both buttons got more clicks with thumbs. The gain showed up on the like and the dislike side.
- Clicks on the like button rose 6%.
- Clicks on the dislike button rose 4.3%.
Thumbs also brought users back more often. The effect reached beyond single clicks to repeat use.
- Repeat app usage rose 2.3%.

The test

The redesign everyone expected to win actually lost

	Heart & X	Thumbs up/down
Role	Proposed redesign	Existing design
Team expectation	More appealing, more taps	Baseline
Like / dislike clicks	Lower	+6% / +4.3%
Repeat usage	Lower	+2.3%
Outcome	Lost	Won

Paktor, a mobile dating app in Asia, tested whether friendlier icons would lift engagement and retention.

Paktor, a mobile dating app in Asia, tested new like and dislike icons to raise engagement and retention.

The team wanted to redesign the like and dislike buttons.
- The goal was to increase user engagement.
- The proposed design used a heart and an X.
- The test sits in the user engagement and retention category.

Version A and version B as Paktor tested them. Screens from abtest.design.

The result

Thumbs icons beat heart and X on every measure

Like clicks6%

Dislike clicks4.3%

Repeat app usage2.3%

The gain showed up on both buttons and carried through to users coming back to the app.

The existing thumbs icons outperformed the heart and X design on every measure reported.

Thumbs icons led to more clicks on both buttons.
- Like clicks were up 6%.
- Dislike clicks were up 4.3%.
Thumbs icons also led to more repeat usage.
- Repeat app usage was up 2.3%.

In the growth library

Paktor, User engagement & retention test. Paktor tested a heart and X for its like and dislike buttons against thumbs up and thumbs down icons. The thumbs design won, lifting like clicks by 6%, dislike clicks by 4.3% and repeat app usage by 2.3%, so the expected winner was not the best performer.

Lessons that draw on this: